Whats the best way of telling when 10 seconds has gone by,for example?

rest( 10 * 1000 );

Do you want to do something while 10 seconds is going by or just wait for 10 seconds? If the former you can set up a timer with

install_int_ex

increment a variable every tick and then when the variable * ticks reaches 10 seconds you know 10 seconds will have past.

Or ...

int begin_time = time(NULL);
while(time(NULL) - begin_time < 10)
{
     // do stuff
}

If you plan to do very little in the loop, and don't want to eat up all the CPU, use a rest statement in the loop:

int begin_time = time(NULL);
while(time(NULL) - begin_time < 10)
{
     // do stuff
     rest(1);
}

Timer::time_t t = timer.secs();

...

if(timer.secs() - t > 9)
  .. 10 seconds have elapsed ..

Even easier:

stopwatch sw;
sw.start(10000);

..

if(sw.check())
  .. 10 seconds have elapsed ..

If you want either of these classes I can give them to you.

http://www.boost.org/libs/timer/timer.htm

It's cross platform. I can't recall if this particular boost lib will be in the next C++ standard but its probably a good shot. It's resolution depends on OS's but windows and *nix are both millisecond tickers IIRC.

from the site: